In a mine, providing and maintaining adequate safety may be of importance. For example, serious or fatal accidents occurring in underground mine in the United States over the years may have resulted from an inability to control the roof of the mine. For example, a fatal accident can occur from the falling of even one large rock from the roof of the mine.
In a case of an emergency situation of the mine, emergency personnel may be deployed on-site of the mine to alleviate the emergency situation through mitigating a source of hazard as well as rescuing stranded individuals from the mine. The emergency situation may include events such as a building fire, a chemical attack, terror attack, subway accident, underground mine collapse, and/or a biological agent attack.
In such situations, breathing air inside the mine may be hazardously affected (e.g., depleted, absorbed, and/or contaminated). In addition, flow of fresh air into the underground may be significantly hindered due to the mine having enclosed regions, lack of windows, and/or high concentration of contaminants. As a result, inhaling air in the mine may be extremely detrimental and may further result in death (e.g., within minutes). Furthermore, emergency work may often need to be performed from within the mine (e.g., due to a limitation of emergency equipment able to be transported on a ground level).
The emergency personnel's ability to alleviate the emergency in an efficient manner may be significantly limited by the lack of breathing air and/or the abundance of contaminated air. A survival rate of stranded civilians in the structure may substantially decreased due to a propagation of contaminated air throughout the mine placing a large number of innocent lives at significant risk.
As such, the emergency personnel may utilize a portable breathing air apparatus (e.g., self-contained breathing apparatus) as a source of breathing air during a rescue mission. However, the portable breathing air apparatus may be heavy (e.g., 20-30 pounds) and may only provide breathing air for a short while (e.g., approximately 15-30 minutes). In the emergency situation, the emergency personnel may need to walk and/or climb to a particular location within the mine to perform rescuing work due to inoperable transport systems (e.g., obstructed walkway, elevators, moving sidewalks, and/or escalators, etc.). As such, by the time the emergency personnel reaches the particular location, his/her portable breathing air apparatus may have already depleted and may require running back to the ground floor for a new portable breathing air apparatus. As a result, precious lives may be lost due to time being lost.